


Jeeves and the Preux Chevalier –Or- The Consummation Devoutly to be Wished

by godsdaisiechain (preux)



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Discovery, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Reunions, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:49:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preux/pseuds/godsdaisiechain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bertie ends up in a sexual situation with a woman for the first time, with disastrous results. In fact, he found the whole affair rather distasteful, especially when his old pal Chuffy Chuffnell clips him a good one in the solar plexus for marrying his wife, Pauline.  </p><p>Meanwhile, Jeeves has been forced to flee the country.  How will they manage to get out of this scrape?</p><p>Happy Birthday to GeorgiaMagnolia</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jeeves and the Preux Chevalier –Or- The Consummation Devoutly to be Wished

**Author's Note:**

  * For [georgiamagnolia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgiamagnolia/gifts).



> The relationships here are a little...complicated.
> 
> Bertie talks way mean to Aunt Agatha.

**Bertie**

The Wooster brain bobbed in a sea of chagrin, confusion, and other puzzling things. At least my suit was impeccable and Jeeves was not there to cast aspersions on my fruity heliotrope and grey striped socks. Dash it, the tears had started at the backs of the e.s. again.  Poor Pauline might suspect that I was not keen for the whole marriage wheeze.  Nice girl, tons of oofa-cum-spiff and joie de vivre and je ne sais quoises, but, oh hang it all!  If only I had a fortifying cocktail…

“Bertie!”  I jumped, knocking over a hat stand, a chair and a bottle of hair tonic, which glugged merrily onto a priceless oriental rug. Aunt Agatha scurried to pick it up.

“Dash it, Aunt Agatha!  I’m getting married in twenty minutes. What is it now?!”

The auntly visage froze in some type of thingness.  Had it been anyone else, I would have said it was guilt.

“Oh, my dear boy,” she gasped, handing me a handkerchief to stem the flow of tears down the damask cheeks.  “I have done a terrible thing.”  She reached into her reticule and pulled out a pile of letters.  My letters.  From Jeeves.

I took them calmly and put them in my breast pocket. “Was it Jarvis?”

“He couldn’t be bought. Or those scoundrels at your clubs. I finally had Claude and Eustace bribe that new valet of yours.  It was ruinously expensive. Five hundred.”  I could not believe she spoke so openly about this rank betrayal.

The willowy limbs started to quake in rage, but I kept the voice light and soft. “He’s fired.  They are out of the will and I am cutting off their allowances.  You are not to darken my door again unless you find a way to fix this. All of it.”

She kept on.  None of them understood.  I hadn’t understood myself that forcibly removing me from Jeeves would have hardened me in this way, but it had. I was a bally rock, a miserable b. rock, but a r. nevertheless. “Bertie, you must….” 

“It’s Lord Yaxley, and I must nothing. They’re open. You read them. They’re all letters of business. Every bally one. You’ve done more than enough. Send that blighter in.”

“She’s a lovely girl and she likes you,” the pleading tone was new, but the whole thing was a blasted cock-up from beginning to end.

“Please go and don’t come back unless you can set this to rights.”

The new valet clomped in, shifty-eyed and guilty.  “Sir?”

“How much?”

“Fifty pounds, sir.” Only a fool would risk a job with me for such a small sum. I wondered what my cousins did with the rest of the money.

“I gave you twenty last week when you saved my favorite loafers from that bally dog. There must have been something else.”

“Me nieces works in her house. Five girls.  None married. She’d have turned them off with…not a good character, sir.” I closed my eyes.  Of course.  It had been the work of a moment for her to accuse Jeeves of corrupting me. If it hadn’t been for Stilton—Florence mentioned it, not knowing about that old affair between us, the way we fought to fool everyone—I would never have known in time to save him. 

“Come to me next time.  You’re fired.  I hope it protects them.  You may apply to the solicitors for your full quarter’s wages.”

“I could never, sir.  Mr. Jeeves would never allow it, neither, Lord Yaxley sir.”

I started. “Mr. Jeeves?”

“Yes, sir.  He is still your secretary, sir.” This was news. I had suggested it but never heard the first word. Perhaps I should have read those boring papers.  More fool Wooster.

“You will tell him what you did. Today or tomorrow.”

He shuffled miserably and nodded. “I took all the notes he left in the solicitors’ papers, too. I cannot apologize enough, sir.”

“How much would I have owed you at quarter time?”

“Fifty less damages, sir.”

“Damages?”

“Mr. Jeeves wrote it in the contracts, sir.  Damages.”

“Here’s two hundred. You’re not to go back to my flat or any of my homes. I’ll have your things sent on. Be gone before I get back and I won’t call the Junior Ganymede and tell them what you did.”

“You are a good man, Lord Yaxley.”

He clomped out, leaving the money on the desk.  All of it, and the other fifty. Rummy. What did that mean? I chased after him and found out.  Then I insisted he take every cent and I phoned the Junior Ganymede and paid for a room and board for him for two months. When I called to have Eustace and Claude disinherited, I had the solicitors wire that valet another hundred pounds as severance. Five hundred! I would butter the lawn with that Claude and that Eustace, blast them, for stealing that chap’s blood money, for preying on his fears. Blighters.

I opened the last letter.  It was addressed from Paris.  “I see that something is terribly amiss or you would have responded to these urgent business matters, my lord. Please be patient.  I will have someone come to you as soon as I can.” Good man, Jeeves.

Only a few people were there since it was her second go. Pauline looked a treat, Oofy Prosser was an exemplary best man, and Stilton made a moving toast. Pauline and I embarked for Paris.  We’d be there in time for the wedding night at my favorite hotel.

 

The word ‘fiasco’ does not begin to describe the wedding night activities.  Of course, I’d never, well, whatsit or whatnotted, with a lady, but there had been much experience with the loving affections with a very select few, in fact, two, chaps of the acquaintance. I had rather hoped that Pauline would not try to go through with things immediately, but she applied a flimsy night-garment that barely covered all the needful bits, which still showed in a rather alarming way.  Then she patted the bed and said we’d better get started and looked offended when I asked if she was certain and said that she need feel no obligation on that score.  Then she barked at me to make tender love to her. Ah well, a man sometimes has to face up to such things, and after all, a Wooster fought at Agincourt.

I did my best, snuggling up to her in the bed and locking the lips gently, stroking her hair and telling her she was a lovely love and thanking her for being with me. I did not cringe, not even a little bit, when her chest bits touched me. Pauline tried to be game, she really did, but she burst out sobbing and apologizing into my new dove-grey pajamas. The heart twisted to see her so distressed, poor thing, and I wrapped her in the sheet to keep her bits well segregated from the Wooster anatomy and nestled her against me tenderly, stroking the hair and making soothing noises until she calmed down. Then I went to the drawer and found a pale blue pajama shirt for her to bung on over the diaphanous nightie so she wouldn’t feel so exposed and embarrassed. Or at least I wouldn’t.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong, old thing?”

“I’m so sorry Bertie, but I simply can’t. I don’t really love you that way.” I wanted to leap about the place in triumph like a march hare after a race with a tortoise, but it did not seem terribly preux, so I resisted the impulse.

A thought assailed the bean. “Was Chuffy at the wedding hotel, old fruit?”  She dissolved into tears, and I soothed her again, feeling very moist.  I did manage to wrap her in the blanket, which was an added layer of protection from those alarming bits of her.

“Y-  yes. H- he w- was. And h- he d- didn’t e- even o- o- object.”

Poor lamb. “That would hardly be preux old thing, I am his old pal from Oxford and the club. It’s not the done thing, you know.”

Pauline perked up quite a bit at this point, sitting up and bunging Wooster with a pillow.  “Bertie! You said he’d be jealous and beg me to come back.”

“He should have done last night before it was too late. I don’t know what went wrong.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but then turned a grey color and rested her lemon on my shoulder. “I am so sorry, Bertie. I threw him out of my room last night. He climbed in at the window. I thought it would be more romantic if he swept me away at the altar. Whatever are we going to do?”

With great effort worthy of the Agincourt ancestor, I refrained from hiding the dial in the Wooster palm. Of course she had turned Chuffy away after he climbed in at her third-storey window. What a paltry effort on his part. “I don’t know. Will you be terribly upset if I sleep in the dressing room and go out early to wander the metrop and ponder the sitch?”

“Of course not, Bertie.  That would be very gentlemanly of you.  Will I call for room service so they see I bunged you out of the bed in case I need an alibi with Marmaduke?”

As long as she was happy and not pressing those bits on me without their proper harness, I would be satisfied. “Clever girl.”

“Do you have the bottoms for these? I’m cold and they wouldn’t let me pack anything warmer.”

I fetched her the pajama bottoms and told her she looked topping in them then settled into the dressing room and looked at the letters.  Yes, the addresses were all the same. I could find him. I had a duty, dash it, and I was hard as a stone, at least until I cried myself to sleep.

 

**Jeeves**

Neither Mr. Wooster nor I knew that the late Lord Yaxley had been protecting us, but on his death, it seemed that Lady Worplesdon had begun a campaign to harm me in the deepest possible way, by seeking to destroy my mind.  Mrs. Travers’s untimely death a few months later had removed our only powerful ally in Mr. Wooster’s family. Thankfully, the services I had rendered to Sir Roderick Glossop made him refuse to subject me to intimate tortures on no evidence except the well-known fact that I had left Lord Worplesdon’s employ after refusing to dress him improperly for dinner, and Mr. Cheesewright’s connections at Scotland Yard assisted him in protecting me for Mr. Wooster’s sake. 

The two schoolmates had been charming young lovers, Mr. Wooster most delicately concerned with protecting Mr. Cheesewright from an exposure that could ruin his career and disinherit him.  I will never forget the evening I happened upon their lovemaking.  Mr. Wooster had been my employer for only a few months, when the sound of a loud groan awakened me just after I had returned from my free evening. Fearing that Mr. Wooster was ill, I rushed to his side with a reviving beverage only to find that I had been sadly mistaken. He had assumed I was still out at my club. Mr. Cheesewright threw himself between me and Mr. Wooster in an instinctive gesture of protection, while Mr. Wooster covered his lover’s nakedness with the sheet. They appeared incredibly young, even though I was not terribly much older, and I apologized and went back to the kitchen. They crept in to find me plating eggs and toast and bacon for them. At that time, such relationships were viewed with tolerance in London, and it was easily smoothed over as I had no intention of doing anything to discompose such an easily satisfied employer. Little did I know that this simple gesture of common kindness would later save my life.   

Our relationships had changed dramatically during the intervening years.  Their steady liaison was relatively brief, or so I had thought.  In that, I had underestimated Mr. Wooster’s powers when motivated by the urge to protect someone he loved. Mr. Cheesewright married a kind and caring young woman who presented him a fine son, Albert, called Bertie. I had learned only as they smuggled me from England that Mr. Cheesewright and Mr. Wooster had maintained their alliance over the course of all those years. And my own situation had changed. I was a refugee, living in Paris under an assumed name and conducting business by phone, hoping to find some way to contact my employer. Six months had passed since Mr. Wooster and Mr. Cheesewright smuggled me from the country, and I had grown exceedingly worried about Mr. Wooster’s long silence when I received a phone call from an acquaintance at the Junior Ganymede Club.

“Is this Mr. Jeeves?”

“Yes.”

“The Mr. Jeeves?”

“I do not understand you.”

“The one what closed up twenty-three cats in that bloke’s bedroom?”

“There were three cats.”

“Ah.  It’s all up, sir.  I took your letters, and all your notes and give them to that horrid aunt of his.  They said they’d hurt my nieces in the most horrible way.  I cannot apologize enough, especially after what he done.”

“Which was?”

“I felt that bad, I left all the money they give me. It were a horrid thing to do, but we had to get the girls away safe.  He chased after me with the money, rented me a room until I could find a new situation, give a reference.”  I could tell that the man was deeply moved by Mr. Wooster’s generosity. “Even told the solicitor to let me use the phone just now.  So you would know.”

“He has always been generous and kind.”

“He’s hard, hard as a rock.  I had no idea that this were underneath.” My own heart clenched in my chest. Whatever had they done to Mr. Wooster? “He’ll be there for the honeymoon by now.”

My voice failed me for a moment.  “Honeymoon?”

“Married that millionaire’s daughter what divorced Lord Chuffnell.  They went to Paris.”  How was that possible?  I had intervened, I thought.

“When?” 

“Yesterday.”

I rushed toward Mr. Wooster’s favorite hotel.  Perhaps there was still time to save him.

 

**Bertie**

Paris is a bally wonderful town, full of life and joie de vivre and croissants and can-can girls, but none of those charms spoke to Wooster.  I was like that blind and deaf chap touching an elephant or leading a horse to water or, thingummy.  Pauline was right, dash it.  Whatever were we going to do?

“You!”  A firm blow to the stomach doubled the willowy corpus.

“Chuffy!  Wait!” I gasped. Time had considerably filled out the Chuffnell frame, lending added weight to his f.b. How the deuce had he climbed in at a third storey window?  Pauline clearly did not understand devotion.

“You bally blighter!  Did you touch her?!”

With heroic effort, I refrained from shuddering. “My very dear Chuffy, if I had been having my way with your wife, why would I be roaming the streets just after dawn?”

Chuffy is one of those brainy coves, and he saw reason immediately.  “Oh, right.  Frightfully sorry, Bertie.  Are you quite all right?” He scrambled around picking up my card case, and whangee and hat, and helping me with them.

“Thank-you Chuffy.” 

“Whatever are you doing, Bertie?”

“I needed to find Jeeves.”

“All right, then.  Will I help you look?”

I would have been glad of his company, but there were other more important things to consider. “Pauline is in the honeymoon suite crying her eyes out over you, old bean. You’d better scarper up and fetch her home.  She hasn’t even unpacked.”  The valor of the Agincourt ancestor prompted me to omit mention of the nightie.

“Crying? You made her cry?”

I hopped right quick before he decided to land another blow. “You made her cry by not being romantic enough, old crumpet. Why did you ever divorce her?”

“We’re not actually divorced.”

“What?!” I could see the headline now. LORD YAXLEY, BIGAMIST AND ADULTERER, SAVED INVERT VALET FROM ELECTRICITY ON PRIVATE BITS AND NOW MUST SUFFER.

Chuffy scrambled around picking up my card case, and whangee and hat, and helping me with them again. “We never filed the papers. I tried to reason with her, Bertie, but ...” He rifled his pockets. “Here. I wrote to Jeeves and asked for his help, and he sent these annulment papers, but I didn’t get them until yesterday, and the blighters held me back from objecting. You had no idea Pauline was still married.  She had no idea, actually. It was a clerical error at the registry and they should never have given you a marriage license.”

“How did you find him?”

“I wrote to your solicitor’s. He’s still your secretary.” How the bally blazes did everyone know that except me?

“Ah right. Of course.” Chuffy biffed off to his lady love and Wooster silently thanked Jeeves for getting him out of the soup again. Now wherever was he?

 

**Jeeves**

I cursed Lord Chuffnell as I ran through the streets, surely looking half wild.  Why had he not merely told Mr. Wooster the truth? I rounded a corner and there he was.  I stopped, chest heaving, hands on my knees, sweat pouring off me in a most unbecoming way.

“Reg?” I couldn’t speak. “Reg?” Mr. Wooster came, and tucked his arm in mine and squeezed. “It’s all right. Just hie us toward your abode.” I tried to speak then paused when I felt him shaking. “I need to sit, old thing. Please.”

“Did she have you followed?” I managed to gasp. He started.

“I don’t know… Chuffy would never?” I could see him thinking over all the people his aunt could have paid to betray him. Poor, misguided woman, thinking she was doing the best for her foppish nephew. “We’ll go back to the hotel?”

I nodded.  We walked back, arm-in-arm, pausing at a café for some breakfast as there was much to discuss.

 

**Bertie**

Chuffy and Pauline had cleared out of the hotel by the time we got back, but invited me to dinner that night.  They’d taken a room somewhere simpler. Jeeves wandered about the place, touching my things as though he had never seen them before.  His fingers lingered on the grey pajamas, which were new, the kind of pajamas he had always been after me to buy.

“Nothing fruity, then, sir?”

“Please don’t Reg. I shudder to think how you are living if you won’t let me see it.  Sit?” He sat on the divan and I went to sit beside him. He leaned his head on my shoulder and commenced to sobbing, which was a first. I had no idea he was that torn up about Old Blighty. “Hush, Reg, hush. I’ll find a way to bring you back home.” Of course, that wasn’t it at all, he started babbling about his heart being broken, and the Wooster h. shattered. He had fallen in love with some blighter who might not return his regard. I’d been looking forward to bunging him in the bed and snugging up for the first time in ages, but alas. Poor Bertram. “He sounds a bounder and a cad, Reg, not to return your affections.”

“I am sure he does not know I have them.” That was possible. I always felt there was someone else, but Jeeves and I had been together steadily for years. Ever since D’Arcy had gotten engaged, in fact.  It was just a convenience at first, but I had soon begun to feel otherwise.  I’d thought he had, too. What a fool I was.

“Does he love another?”

“Yes, but the lover married several years ago.”

The insides twisted.  I knew how that felt, not that D’Arcy could have helped it. He’d had no choice. I’d had to see to it, though, making sure he knew he was free to go that I would not blame him, never letting him see how much it pained me. His wife, Alice, a nice sort, really loved him. “Poor chap.”

“Indeed. We have an understanding, but…”  A sort of electrical current shot through Wooster.

“Jeeves, you have an understanding with me.”

“Yes, I’ve been trying to explain. I love you.  I never said it.  I…”  And he was sobbing all over again. He was so pathetic that I could not even be pipped at him for frightening me.  This was so highly un-Jeevesian. What on earth had gotten into him?

“There, there, Reg. I do return your affections.  You should know that by now.  I tell you enough.” 

“I am sure that you even called Lady Chuffnell ‘lovely love.’” I went beet red.  How did he always know these things? “You call Mr. Cheesewright that as well.” Yes, well, D’Arcy and I had maintained a sort of connection, in this very hotel as it happened, every year.

“Ah.  Shall I invent a new endearment for you, Reg?  Is that what it will take? Or do you want me to stop seeing D’Arcy?”

“No. Of course not. I… I am so terribly sorry. I’ve done something quite terrible. You can never forgive me….”

This again? I heaved a deep sigh. “Have at it, Reg.  What did you do this time?”

“I lied to you.” With great difficulty I refrained from bursting out in merry laughter.

“You’ve done that many times, Reg.”

“Mr. Cheesewright proposed to you, sir. You misunderstood and I lied to you about it.” I started because I remembered the incident quite differently. D’Arcy had been pressured to marry, but he had also wished to come home to me every night.  I could never give him that. He was a dear, but what we had was more of a schoolboy crush left late that had matured into a mellow affectionate friendship with certain additional benefits, or so I had thought.

“You can’t possibly be right, Reg.” That set him off again. Really. If he had not just got me out of the worst matrimonial soup, I would have shook him, but there was no choice but to pet him tenderly until he calmed down and then gently get him undressed and tuck him into the bed and stay with him until he pretended to go to sleep. I phoned Stilton.

“Hello?”

“D’Arcy?”  The voice broke. “Is that you?”

“What is it Bertie? How was the wedding night?” I nearly wept with relief at the normal tone of his voice.

“Bally awful.  Er, ah, Jeeves is here.  He said you proposed to me all those years ago.”

“Proposed?”

“Yes. Proposed.  I don’t recall any such thing, frankly, old egg, but I was phoning to apologize if I missed it.”

I heard the long pause of someone trying not to hurt my feelings. “I wouldn’t have minded being a bit more of your regular thing, Bertie, you know, or in fact your only thing, but it would not have done to try and muscle on together indefinitely.”

The phone hopped about in my grasp but I somehow kept hold of it. “But, D’Arcy you were my only regular thing. I agree about the muscling, but you were the only…since Eton, until...” The line went silent. “D’Arcy?”

I almost melted in the affection that beamed down the phone line. “Well, I say, Wooster, that is the best news I have had in an age. Genuinely?”

My face bent into a warm smile. “Genuinely, old bean.”

He let out a low surprised chuckle. “And now? There are no others you slip off with?”

“No. I thought you knew.”

“No wonder he is upset, Bertie. Perhaps we should stop.  Would you mind?”

The heart twisted painfully. I would mind. The heart would break. “Terribly, as it happens.” Then a thought occurred to me. “D’Arcy, might we… er, later, discuss?”

He sounded deeply pleased and half amused, as if he already knew what I just registered. “I would mind terribly as well, the more so now.  I will have a treat in store for you in Cannes.”

I oozed into the bedroom to find Jeeves staring at the ceiling. His eyes were like damp violets, and the heart melted. “Reg? What’s happened?”

“Paul.”  I felt a bit stupid, which was really rather a relief after all the intelligent thinking I’d been forced to do since becoming Lord Yaxley.

“Paul?”

“Seppings.” He began to bawl in an agony of grief. Seppings had died suddenly about two months before. I had Jeeves in my arms in a trice.

The age difference was pronounced, but they had taken many ‘fishing’ holidays together.  I’d never thought to question it. “Oh Reg, I had no idea.” He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I could not blame him, not even able to say goodbye properly. I held him until he cried himself to sleep then crept out and called Chuffy to reschedule dinner. He was rather relieved as he and Pauline had gotten up to a degree of mischief he did not want interrupted. 

 

**Jeeves**

I woke, still shaking, my breath unsteady, to find Mr. Wooster sitting in the side chair reading an annotated volume of Spinoza, the one he had gifted me several years before. He looked thin and exhausted. “You left it behind,” he answered my questioning gaze.  “D’Arcy explained the high points and between that and what you’ve told me over the years I now quite like it.”

“I am sorry for my behavior.”

Mr. Wooster smiled at me sadly.  “No, Reg.  I’m sorry.  I got you into this horrible mess.  Now, let’s get you dressed and hie to your abode for your raiment.”

“Sir?”

“Please, I must see how you have been living.  The nightmares have been awful.”

I nodded and he helped me on with my garters and socks, trousers and shirt and waistcoat.  “Sir, please.”

“No, Reg. You’re bally well shaken.” His tone was implacable, but he folded me into a very tender embrace when I was dressed.  “I missed you so bally much, Reg.”

“And I you.”  I noted how loose his clothes had grown, and then I let him hire a cab to bring us to the place I lived.

We climbed the stairs to my pleasant and spacious but sparsely furnished 2-room flat. Mr. Wooster’s face relaxed into a relieved smile when he opened the door and saw the sun shining cheerfully through the windows. I had disposed of my few belongings around the main room, which had a bed partitioned off in the corner. A number of books were scattered about.  I had only managed to bring one change of clothes and the new suit I had purchased was inexpensive as my funds had been confiscated.  Mr. Cheesewright had later managed to recover some, although not all, of my savings, which was now deposited in a local bank, but I had had no need for better clothes.

“Where is the splendid raiment?”

“There is none.  I had only a small satchel when I fled.”

Mr. Wooster seemed to digest this, tapping a heel with his whangee. “I thought I’d asked the solicitors to see that you had your things?”

“They would have shipped them cheaply. I believe they may still be in customs.”

“We’ll see to that tomorrow, then. For now, let’s find you a bespoke suit so I may fete you royally on the occasion of our reunion.” His gaze flitted about the room. “And you clearly need more books. And a decent cocktail set.”

But I did not want to leave just yet. “Sir?” He looked up and I went to him.  “Please.” I took his hand and led him toward the bed. He looked at the narrow mattress and then back at me and kissed me long and tenderly.

“No, not here, Reg. We’ll go back to my hotel and have a proper honeymoon, and I’ll take you to the fine places. You deserve it after all you’ve been through, and it’s not the same now that you’re my secretary.”

“But if we are seen…”

“I am not going back. I am not leaving you again, Reg.  The heart cannot take it.”

“No, sir.”

I could see the terrible disappointment on his face. “Jeeves?” His voice broke, but it was too much, especially from a man I had heard confess his affections to another, and that other so much more worthy of him, only a few hours before. I could not ask him to sacrifice so much when I had been so selfish and manipulative all these years.

“I won’t allow it. You have a position and a duty to maintain in England. I will not endanger your standing, your other friendships and your happiness.”

His mouth opened and closed. “Is it because of D’Arcy?”

“Oh, sir, no. I cannot begrudge you his friendship. You should not sacrifice so much for me.” Anger and sorrow showed on his precious face.

“It’s for me as well, you know. Will you have the honeymoon anyway?” I broke down again. He took me in his arms and lay on the bed and held me until I calmed myself. “I’m not expected back for a month at least and once it’s known I was abandoned on my wedding night, I can take my time getting back. I think I’ll buy a nice flat here and install you as my secretary there to save you board and room. I can take a few months here, a few in Old Blighty, a few in Italy. You like Italy, don’t you Reg? That’s a compromise? Will you try it at least?” He would never go back to take his place.  I could sense it in him, the firmness of will he used to apply to his socks. It would only be a few years before he sold everything up, except our first flat.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, now let’s get you some suits and install ourselves at a nice hotel.”

“Thank-you, sir.”

“And please stop calling me ‘sir’”

“Yes, Lord Yaxley.”

“You always lose when we have tickle fights, Reg.”

“I have so missed you, Bertram.”

 

 

**Bertie**

I hopped up and helped Jeeves lever himself from the bed.  He was still shaking.  I helped him wash the dial and put his clothes in a bag and we ankled along until we saw a cab.  Then we got him a couple of suits and the other necessaries.  He objected feebly, but I could see how pleased he was to have something good to wear again. I had them measure him for something proper and meanwhile bunged some pajamas and a nice dressing gown and some other needful items into our bags and toted him and them back to the hotel.  The manager clucked as he switched the rooms—he had been fond of D’Arcy and refused to give me the usual room—and I was ready to pack up and go when he winked at me. “Is better something new? For now?”

We oozed up to the suite and Jeeves set about stowing his new belongings, the dial simply glowing. He was so easy to please sometimes. “Reg?”  He looked up and smiled at me, a warm, affectionate beaming sort of expression.

“Thank-you so very much, Bertram.”

I trickled over to him and took the hand. “Would we go out on the town?”

“I am exhausted,” he said, and rested the bean on my shoulder as though he was a man reaching home after battle.

“I’ll phone for something,” I said, but I put my arms around him and held on for dear life. 

“Bertram? Are you well?” Words failed me and I took a shuddering breath. “Bertram?” He sounded worried, which would not do after the months he’d had.  His voice was still hoarse from all the crying he’d done.

“I am sorry, Reg, so sorry she did this to you.”

“I’ll phone for something.”

“Please just hold me for a while.”  He wanted to undress me, but I felt shy and vulnerable, so he snugged up with me atop the covers of the bed.

“You’ve grown so thin, darling,” he said, stroking my hair as I willed back the tears.

“No one cooks like you, Reg, and I hadn’t the heart to eat.  How did it come to this?”

 

Some years earlier

**Jeeves**

My passions had been excited on seeing Mr. Wooster in the act of making love, and I struggled against my feelings for some time. My own attachment to an older man of my professional acquaintance sustained me, but after some time, he noticed my feelings and, more importantly, Mr. Wooster’s. “You could have him, you know, Reginald.  He’d not be fooled if it were merely a trick, but you’re genuinely fond of him. I see it in you. We see each other only on the holidays.  I couldn’t hold you to this, you know.”  I stammered.  “I have known him from a boy, and I believe he likes you, too, Reg. I’ll not blame you, darling lad.”

Mr. Cheesewright had been approaching me about Mr. Wooster’s habits for some months, and I learned through his valet that the young man had been keeping company with a suitable young woman. It had been simple enough to suggest to Mr. Cheesewright that my employer was quite popular as a man about town. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Cheesewright had called to see his lover on my free evening.  It was mean and sneaking of me, but I had crept back into the flat by the back entrance when I saw him on the street.

“Bertie, I mean to propose to Alice.  I’d rather it were you, old thing, but I want a family.  I hope you can understand.”

The tears started when I heard the catch in Mr. Wooster’s throat.  “No, no, D’Arcy.  You know I want what’s best for you.  She’s a fine gal.  I couldn’t ask for anything better on that score.”

“Come here, lovely love.  I am so sorry.  I do wish things were different.”  Mr. Wooster’s voice was muffled.  “Of course, of course.  You are right, it is too soppy for me.”  I slipped out to my club feeling a strange mixture of guilt and elation.  It proved difficult to break down Mr. Wooster’s barriers of chivalry and honor, but I happened upon him one evening in a state of melancholy and I realized it had been the night that he and Mr. Cheesewright generally met to fight at their club. The next week, Mr. Wooster collapsed on the doormat in a profound state of inebriation and, as I was helping him to bed, he began weeping.

“So sorry, I just didn’t quite understand, Jeeves, what all this would mean.” My heart melted at his distress and I folded him in a cautious embrace.  “Thank-you, Jeeves, but it’s not necessary.  It’s good of you, though, to think of it.” I kept thinking of it and eventually we became lovers.

 

**Bertie**

The Jeevesian corpus had bally attracted the young master even before he shimmered into the room and saw me with D’Arcy. The smouldering look on his dial stunned me like a bunny stunned by a stunning thing. I didn’t think very much of that afterwards, but D’Arcy mentioned it eventually.  “You could have him, you know.”

“Whatsit?”

“Jeeves.  He wants you, Bertie.”  I started and flailed, and D’Arcy caught me and smoothed me down again.

“Thank-you old crumpet.  Why are you saying this?”

His eyes filled.  “I don’t want to leave you, lovely love.  He’s fond of you and takes very good care of you.  I’d feel better knowing you had…that someone was showing you affection.”

“And?”

“I have seen you looking at him. But he thinks you’re a flirt.  It may be hard to convince him…” D’Arcy got choked up again, and I draped myself over him. We got distracted for some time. He is such a bally nice lover. About a week later, he brought it up again.

“The only way it would work is if he thinks he’s tricking me, D’Arcy. You know. Remember that time that Bobbie wanted me to stay for Christmas? And I told Jeeves I wanted to marry her?” D’Arcy chuckled.

The bean had a sudden flash of brilliance. “We can stage it.”

“You are wicked, old bean.” We got distracted again, but the next week we carried out our plan.

D’Arcy was saddened. “You can stop stuffing your face in my shirt and laughing.  You know I am bally torn up about this?” The e.s. filled.

“There’s nothing else for it, D’Arcy. You know that, and she is a fine gal.”

“Ah, don’t cry, my lovely lover. Will I distract you?” 

I really did weep over D’Arcy though, when it came to it. I had not understood that getting married would take him from the club and my friendship in so many small ways.  And even though I knew that Jeeves had manipulated me, in his usual way, I always felt a bit un-preux over that ruse.

 

Present day

**Jeeves**

I stroked Mr. Wooster’s golden hair and kissed his forehead. “I am sorry I tricked you.” He smiled and pressed closer against me.  My eyes filled as he nestled his head against my shoulder.

“And I am sorry I tricked you, Reg, except that I’m not sorry at all.  You’d never have even hugged me if I hadn’t.”  I pressed him against me.

“You might have been happy enough with one or another of those girls and now you are an exile from your home and friends, all because of my feelings of lust.”

“Is that all it is now?”

“No, but it is all it was at the time.”

“Was it, Reg? Was it really?” I looked into his blue eyes and saw that he knew, had always known, the soft feelings I had harbored for him, and I started sobbing again. “Oh, love. I am sorry. I did not mean to tease you.”

“I have always been so fond of you.”

“We’ve gotten a bit moist,” said Mr. Wooster when I had quieted.  I nestled against him and smiled.  “Oh, Reg.  I cannot believe how much I missed you.”

“You are so very good to me. I hardly deserve it.”

“I can never give you a tenth of the good treatment I owe you, Reg. You have cared for me and protected me and sheltered me even at the cost of your dearest attachments.  I can never do enough for you.”  I rested my head against him, somewhat overcome.  “Are you going to start crying again?”

I chuckled. “I hope not.”

“I’d like to curl up with you in a warm bath.”

“That sounds delightfully welcome.”

“Will I undress you lingeringly before and make gentle love to you afterwards?”

“Yes, please, darling.”

 

**Bertie**

The soul began to heal itself as I basked once more in the Jeevesian presence.  I could not believe how much his absence had hurt me.  The sunny disposish had been harmed in a deeply vital way, as if the insides had been gnawed away by ravening bally beavers. Jeeves was injured as well, and we staggered about Paris, propping each other up and tending to each other as best we could. He was much the same as always, but tender and sensitive, as if a layer of protective armor had been peeled from him, leaving the soft pink underbelly exposed.  I noticed this in small ways—how he let me undress him in daylight and look at him, how he allowed me to touch him wherever I wanted, how he moaned and thrashed more wantonly under my attentions, how he accepted more and conditioned for less.  My solicitors wrote and asked for permission to employ him more regularly as a consultant for others, giving him an income that was independent of me, and he opened up still further, sharing himself more freely and losing the stuffed frog almost entirely.

My trip with D’Arcy approached, and I asked Reg what he would have me do.  The heart was still so raw and sore that I half wished he would ask me to stay with him, but he insisted that I go. “We have never been open with each other about any other lovers, Reg, and I do not know what your situation is in that regard, but D’Arcy is the only one I…” the pipes closed and tears started in the e.s.  Jeeves wrapped me tenderly in his arms and then led me to the bed and made gentle love to me.

“Bertram,” he said afterward in that deep, soothing voice, the one he has after I have turned his brain slightly mushy about the edges. “I love you, and I know that you will not be happy unless you can maintain this tie with Mr. Cheesewright.  And I cannot tell you how grateful I am to him as well.”

“You won’t feel jealous or slighted?”

“Did you?”

“Reg?”

“When you learned about Paul?”

“Of course not.  He was your lover long before…” The bean reeled.  Seppings had been Jeeves’s lover long before he met me.  Seppings had told him that I would be a good master.  Seppings would have been Jeeves’s husband if such a thing had been allowed, just as D’Arcy would have been mine, and instead, we had all had these inverted relationships, with Reg and I together for years in a steady way, while our first choices were rele-whatsit to a week or two here and there. “Oh, Reg.  I had no idea.  I wish I knew. I would have…”

He stopped my mouth with his own. “Darling Bertram, I have not been sorry for one moment I have spent with you, not one moment. There are not words adequate to explain how I feel, how I have grown to feel. You are my heart, my very heart. Now that…there is no one else for me now.”

The eyes filled and we had the most spectacular evening of lovemaking and then Jeeves decided to take a week or two to fish in Spain.  He left a week later and a few days afterward, I went to Cannes to meet D’Arcy.

The time with Stilton nourished my heart, as if it was finally settling down to the eggs and b after a long night of boat races and incarceration.  He had always been such a refuge from trouble, an easy confidant, an affectionate shoulder to lean on, and a dashed fine kisser. We laughed and joked and told each other the same stories we’d told at Oxford, and threw cards into a top hat and played in the bed in the most delightful way.  Our lovemaking always had the same fresh newness to it, as if we were still those frightened young men, just out of Eton, clinging to each other out of a sense of familiarity. On the third night, we were sitting on the beach, holding hands, watching the sunset and D’Arcy turned to me, sorrow in his eyes.  “This is the last time, isn’t it?”

I started and flailed. “D’Arcy? I, what?”

He was always so patient with me. “Jeeves is giving us this one last time because he is sorry he interfered. We hid too well and he feels guilty because it made it so much harder for us when we were younger, but this is the last time, isn’t it?”

The heart writhed and twisted in my chest like an animal caught in a trap. “I, D’Arcy, please, I…” I was still too hurt from the separation from Jeeves to do this. D’Arcy and I had been lovers, very discreet lovers, for so long. Jeeves was the only person who ever knew about us, we had been that careful. He’d been married for five years, and we had seen each other less and less, but I had not registered the loss of our day-to-day connection since the night that Jeeves had first, tentatively hugged me. Looking back, it was very unlike him. Why had he not offered me a brandy and soda and tucked me into the bed? I considered the guilty, sorrowful look on D’Arcy’s dial, and then I understood something else. He had hired Jeeves to be my lover, and  was that how Aunt Agatha had become suspicious—because Jeeves had been seen with D’Arcy?  That was what had caused all of this? D’Arcy saw my rising distress and hustled me into our hotel before I began to weep with shame and humiliation.  He held me and I struggled not to cry.  “Did you pay him?  Is that how she found out?”

“I tried, Bertie, and I understand if you cannot forgive me. He did trick me, though. Never spent a cent of it and, even with all he lost…he gave it all back, every penny. I pretended the solicitors had recovered some of his funds and sent it to him when…” I started. “But I do not know what turned your aunt against him.”  The tears came then, and it was such a relief to have him there to comfort me. “Shhh. Hush now.  He loves you, Bertie.  He genuinely does, and I do not have the heart to interfere between you again.”

“But he said…”

“What would you have done?  If he had another lover before you, someone he loved and could not be with?”

“I would let him carry on, D’Arcy.  And if he tried to desist I would deceive…” I ended off with a gasp.

His look of love nearly melted me. “Yes, beloved boy. You would deceive your lover to protect him, just as I deceived you. I will always love you, Bertie, always, but I do wonder if we should desist. I am beginning to think this craven sneaking is not the best way forward. Perhaps it would have been better to let you feel that pain.”

“When did Alice find out?”

His mouth opened and closed. “She does not know.”

“I imagine that if Jeeves wanted us to stop, she would discover something, D’Arcy.”

A heady thingness suffused him as he realized that I was correct. “You are a bally genius, Bertie.” We spent another precious day together, and, as I always did, I insisted that we spend it naked in our room, just in case we never saw each other this way again. As he always did, he delayed his trip back another half day—Alice always teased him about his tendency to miss trains—and then he returned to his family.  Usually I would stay on for a week or so, alone, recovering so Jeeves would not be suspicious of my sorrow, but this time I went straight home.

 

 

I hopped on a train to Spain and found Jeeves on the beach with another man, looking hale and well and brown and happy.  I had never seen him so relaxed and smiling. The heart broke, simply broke. He jumped up as soon as he saw me. His companion tried to take his arm and speak with him, but Jeeves shook him off and hastily came to my side, a look of thingness across his dial.

“Sir?!”  He kissed me on both cheeks and kept his hand on my arm.  “Are you well? Is there something amiss?”

Somehow Agincourt stood me in good stead and I willed back the tears. “I didn’t…” The pipes closed for a moment and I cleared them. “I did not mean to intrude, Jeeves.” 

The Jeevesian mouth opened and closed. “This is my nephew. He and his family are here, my brother and….” I felt a bally idiot as the list of Jeevesian relatives unfurled. “Wait here and I’ll send him back to the hotel.  Where are you staying?”

“May I meet…?” I finally managed to gasp.

The Jeevesian mouth opened and closed again. “Yes. Of course. I… it would be… You’ll join us for dinner?”  The young man called and Jeeves ran back a moment then trotted back, smiling. “I am so glad you came, darling.  Thank-you for coming to me.” We floundered across the rocky beach until we were well out of sight of his nephew, and he took my hand.  His dial glowed with love and happiness. “I am so happy to see you.” We ankled to my hotel and he kept up a stream of patter, in a most un-Jeevesian fashion, until we made it into my room, and he folded me against him. He smelled of salt and sweat and Jeeves and my eyes filled. “I missed you so terribly,” he breathed, rubbing the back of my neck.  I rested the onion on his shoulder and concentrated on breathing.  He kissed me quickly and then disappeared into the bath.  I wandered after him and he came, still with that happy, glowing look about him, and took my hand.  “What is it?”

“You really do not mind, do you?”

His brightness would have made the sun look like a dark and dismal thing.  “You came back to me, Bertie.  Every time you come back.  Every time.  Even now, when you could go anywhere without fear for me or my future. You still came to me, even when you have no obligation to protect me.” He wiped the tears that had started down my cheeks and started unbuttoning my shirt. “I love you, Bertie.  I love you. I love you.”  He paused and threw his arms around me and kissed my cheeks again and got back to work.  I reached up and touched his tan cheek.

“Reg?”

The look in his eyes warmed me right through, and I felt a smile curl the lips. “Yes, darling?”

I hated to do it, especially after he called me Bertie for the first time, but I had to know. “Did D’Arcy pay you to be my lover?”

The smile dropped from his face. He went white and then flushed so deeply it stained his chest. “I…” he stammered.  “I am sorry.  I…” He let his hands drop and turned away, but I held him and he looked up, an anxious expression on the lemon.

“Tell me, Reg. Please tell me.”

“I wanted you so badly,” he whispered.  “You are so kind and beautiful.  It was like a dream when he asked me to take care of you that way. I couldn’t offend him. I gave it back, and…” The sudden understanding hit him like a fish hitting the bottom of a boat. “He didn’t save anything? He lied to me?” 

I pulled him closer so I could take him in my arms. “Only for the best reasons, Reg. He was afraid for you, and he knew I would endanger myself to protect you. Did you plan this between us today?”

He rested the bean against mine. “No. I have grown so weary of deception and duplicity. I… hoped, Bertie. I hoped you would choose to come back to me. I did not know what you would do, what you would want. Are you angry with me? Can you forgive me?”

“I love you, Reg.  There is nothing to forgive now. Will you have a bath with me?” He paused.  “I brought you a few new things to wear, so you needn’t worry about changing.”  He beamed and leaned forward to kiss my lips.

“Can we make love, Bertie?  Will you let me make love to you?”

“May I kiss you on your personal areas?”  He had never let me do such a thing before.

“You told me that you loved me. You may kiss me wherever you please.”

And I did, all over. He was bally delicious, and he said I was, too.

 

**Jeeves**

Nearly a year had passed since Mr. Wooster’s wedding day, and we were only a few days back from a short trip to the Italian Riviera when the doorbell rang unexpectedly.  I kissed my lover and pulled on my dressing gown.  “Perhaps it is the tailor,” I said.  It was Lady Worplesdon.  Humiliatingly enough, I yelped. “Lady Worplesdon!”  Mr. Wooster, there is no other word for it, scarpered out in his pajama bottoms and bare feet.

“Aunt Agatha,” his tone was cold.

I did my best to blend with the woodwork and went back to the bedroom to retrieve Mr. Wooster’s pajama shirt, dressing gown and slippers, which I brought to him.  Lady Worplesdon was on the divan, and remained seated while I helped Mr. Wooster cover his bare chest and feet. We stood while Lady Worplesdon sat.

“Bertie, I have, I believe, righted everything.  It was not easy.”  She pulled a sheaf of papers from her bag and handed them to me.  They were in perfect order. “The solicitors were able to recover Jeeves’s assets, and I was able to obtain a pardon so that he may return to England should he wish it.  I realize that the suspicion can never fully be allayed, so I came here personally to invite you both to be my guests at home.”

Mr. Wooster collapsed into a chair.  “Aunt Agatha, what exactly do you think…?”

“I never understood, not until I read those letters.  If only I had known.”

Mr. Wooster’s jaw opened. “What letters?”

“The business letters, Bertie,” she said impatiently. “If he had been simply your manservant, he would have thanked you for helping him or asked for help to retrieve his funds. If he was your lover, he would have done some foolish thing to reassure you. He didn’t.  He never thought of himself. He simply protected you.”

“Aunt Agatha, I don’t quite…”

“Don’t you see, Bertie? I thought he was taking advantage of you.”  She turned to Jeeves.  “I am very sorry, Jeeves, for the pain and suffering this must have caused you.”  She rose and went to kiss Mr. Wooster good-bye.  He caught her by the shoulders.

“Will you stay to breakfast?”

“Bertie, it’s early afternoon.”

“Will you stay to luncheon?”

“Please, Lady Worplesdon?” I added. “We have some very fine cutlets.”

“Thank-you, Jeeves.  And both of you go get dressed.  I cannot believe you refused to work for my husband over that flannel shirt and you are in your dressing gown at noon.” Mr. Wooster went into his bedroom and Lady Worplesdon took my arm.  I started and stammered.

“Lady…?”

“He looks himself again, and I can never repay you for helping him. I love him, young man, badly as I show it.  Thank-you for protecting and caring for him.”

That night, Mr. Wooster came to me just after dark.  “Reg?”

“Bertram, you seem distressed.”

“Will you come get undressed and snuggle with me all naked?”

My heart melted as other portions of my anatomy became more alert and erect.  We undressed and nestled together in the bed, Mr. Wooster resting his head on my shoulder.  “What is it, darling?”

“Reg, do you ever wish things were different?  That we could be really together?”

“We are really together, Bertie.”

“I want to ask you to marry me, but chaps can’t…”

“But what about Mr. Cheesewright?”

“He’s already married Reg.”  I smiled fondly at my dear lover and hoped he would never discover why I had asked that question.

“Will we exchange tokens?”

Mr. Wooster sat up and then climbed on the top of me, covering me with his body and pressing his mouth on mine. We made love and drifted to sleep and when we woke, sticky and hungry, he took a small box from the bedside table and presented me with a signet ring.  “It was my uncle’s,” he said simply. “Please accept it?”  We lost track of time in the affections that ensued, and when we recovered ourselves, I gave him my grandfather’s watch.  Then I prepared our dinner and we took a bath together and made love again.  As he drifted off to sleep that night, Mr. Wooster looked at me and whispered, “I love you, lovely Jeeves.”  His eyes dropped closed and I whispered back, “and I love you, my only.” 


End file.
